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"Jamal Frontbek-Kyzy, who leads
a Muslim women’s group called Mutakalim, said women suffered more than men from
the lack of access to jobs in education.
“The boys can work as clerics whereas the girls can’t find employment at all,”
she explained. “As a result, the girls usually get married as soon as possible.”
A
growing number of Islamic school graduates want to work as teachers in the
state system, but find their qualifications are not recognised.
By Tolkun
Namatbaeva in Bishkek (RCA No. 528, 24-Jan-08)
Students
leaving the growing number of Muslim religious schools in Kyrgyzstan complain
they cannot get teaching jobs in state schools because their diplomas are not
officially recognised.
Almost none of the students trained at Islamic schools or madrassas go on to
find employment in state education. They see this as tantamount to
discrimination, arguing that they are well qualified to teach but are prevented
from doing so, while schoolchildren are instructed in religion and ethics by
non-specialists.
While the issue has opened up a wider debate about the separation of religion
and the secular state, some experts on Islam say madrassa graduates should be
allowed to teach religion in the schools, especially if they acquire a broader
education that includes non-religious subjects.
Kyrgyzstan now has about 50 madrassas, seven Muslim institutes and one Islamic
university – the result of a religious revival that began after this Central
Asian state became independent in 1991. Many parents are now keen for their
children to have religious education and ethics classes as part of the secular
school curriculum.
“None of the current graduates of madrassas and Islamic institutes can find a
job [in the state school system] even though there are now more than 10,000 of
them,” claimed Jamal Frontbek-Kyzy, who leads a Muslim women’s group called
Mutakalim.
“The Ministry of Education pays no attention to our appeals, as religion is
separate from the state. Nor does the State Agency for Religious Affairs care.”
Frontbek-Kyzy said women suffered more than men from the lack of access to jobs
in education.
“The boys can work as clerics whereas the girls can’t find employment at all,”
she explained. “As a result, the girls usually get married as soon as
possible.”
The solution, said Frontbek-Kyzy, is for madrassas to introduce more general
education courses into their curricula so that they are more compatible with
the state system, and their graduates become more employable.
“Our diplomas would then be in demand and would be recognised by the Kyrgyz
Ministry of Education,” she said.
Frontbek-Kyzy admitted that the country’s madrassas would need to raise their
standards a good deal before their diplomas could command general respect.
One problem, she said, was that these institutions themselves lacked qualified
theology teachers.
“There is not a single doctor of theology at the Islamic university, the seven
institutes or the 50 madrassas,” she maintained. “The teachers we have today are
mainly self-taught.”
Kadyr Malikov, a theologian who works at the Institute for Strategy, Analysis
and Theory in Bishkek, agreed that madrassas need to incorporate secular
subjects into their curricula.
“We need to start reforming the religious education system,” he said. “That
entails raising the standard of religious education to a more academic level.
We need a more intellectual Islam,” he said.
“We want the madrassas to be transformed into recognised schools that also
provide a secular education, with secular subjects and state-recognised
diplomas.”
Malikov says it is ignorance, not religious learning, that is a danger to
society.
“The influence of religion is increasing in the country and we must recognise
that. The danger of social unrest stems not from Islam itself but from
ignorance of the basics of religion on the part of believers,” he said.
He attributes this “ignorance” to what he calls the “acute lack of an
intellectual group among the clergy,” and estimates that only 30 or 40 per cent
of imams or prayer leaders in Kyrgyzstan have received a formal theological
education.”
Asan Saipov, spokesman for the chief mufti, who heads the country’s
officially-recognised Muslim establishment, appears to be more interested in
seeing the state change its overall attitude towards Islam than in encouraging
radical reforms within the madrassas.
He would like, for example, to see the abolition of the current constitutional
safeguard separating religion from the state.
Saipov complains that although Kyrgyzstan’s Islamic university offers several
non-religious courses such as the Kyrgyz and Russian languages, the history of
Kyrgyzstan and the history of religion, the education ministry still insists
this is not enough.
The result, he said, is that state schools are left with no teachers qualified
to offer pupils a moral education.
“The schools offer lessons in ethics taught by the usual untrained secular
teachers who distort these lessons, whereas our [graduate] teachers are not
allowed to work there because of these disagreements with the education
ministry,” he said.
Saipov believes the dearth of proper religious teaching in the schools has led
many young people to convert to what he calls “sects and non-traditional
religious movements that do not lead to any good”. He was alluding to the
numerous evangelical Christian and other groups that recruited many converts in
Kyrgyzstan in recent years.
He fears that without a more considered approach to the role of Islam, there
could one day be bloodshed, even a break-up of Kyrgyzstan. At the moment,
however, “officials here were raised in atheism and they get scared even when
they hear the word ‘religion’”, he said.
Saipov offers a simple solution, saying, “The Ministry of Education should stop
creating obstacles and start recognising Islamic diplomas so that graduates
from Islamic institutes can teach in all schools and universities.”
The Kyrgyz government shows little sign of giving into such uncompromising
demands and appears committed to the separation of church and state.
According to Ainura Isirailova of the government agency in charge of issuing
educational permits and certification, the official line is that the education
provided by madrassas and other Muslim institutions “is not secular, they only
provide religious education, and so their diplomas are not recognised by the
Ministry of Education”.
Sharsheke Usenov of the State Agency for Religious Affairs, underlined the
point that the divide between religion and state is here to stay. However, he
said the decision to incorporate more secular subjects into the madrassas’
curriculum was a step in the right direction.
“Muslim leaders need to think about what the graduates of the Islamic
institutions will do, and introduce secular subjects… into their programmes,”
he said. “They need to work in this direction in order to make sure their
diplomas win recognition.”
The authorities are clearly not ruling out a compromise altogether.
Yevgeniya Chubukova, who works at the government department for professional
education, indicated that if the madrassas introduced a broader set of courses,
the state would heed their demands for recognition.
“If they start to follow the standards of secondary and higher education
approved by the Ministry of Education, along with their religious subjects,
they will be able to award two diplomas [for religious and secular courses],
and then the whole problem will be resolved,” said Chubukova.
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